


heavy hearts

by casdoms (moffwithhishead)



Series: season 10 codas [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean in Hell, Dean's Soul, Episode Tag, Episode: s10e09 The Things We Left Behind, M/M, Mark of Cain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-11
Updated: 2014-12-11
Packaged: 2018-02-28 23:58:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2751968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moffwithhishead/pseuds/casdoms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Humans are built to be resilient but souls are not. They are finite and vulnerable and far too many people bruise their souls too quickly. </p><p>He remembers getting the order in Heaven to save Dean Winchester from perdition. He remembers Tariel telling him that he would know which soul Dean was when he saw him.</p><p>--------------</p><p>this started out as me rambling about souls and cas saving dean from hell and suddenly morphed into Cas' feelings on the end of 10.09.</p>
            </blockquote>





	heavy hearts

**Author's Note:**

> obvious 10.09 spoilers. warnings for torture mentions and dean's time in hell. 
> 
> find me on tumblr at highdeans

There was light. Castiel remembers that more than anything else he's seen in his lifetime. 

There was pain and grief and sorrow and debilitating guilt but underneath that, there was  _so much_  light. 

Souls are a complicated thing, even more-so than Grace. They are an portrait of the owner's truest selves. They are the good in humans, they are the bad in humans. They are everything that humans spend their entire lives learning to hide from the rest of the world.

To an angel they are small, they are weak, they are interchangeable, and they are  _boring_.

Castiel remembers feeling that way before. He remembers finding humans fascinating, miraculous even, but he also remembers pitying them for having something so easily malleable be at the core of their being. 

Humans are built to be resilient but souls are not. They are finite and vulnerable and far too many people bruise their souls too quickly. 

He remembers getting the order in Heaven to save Dean Winchester from perdition. He remembers Tariel telling him that he would know which soul Dean was when he saw him.

He remembers feeling that the mission was beneath him and his garrison. They were warriors, some of the best that Heaven had, and they were being sent to retrieve a  _human_  from his own chosen damnation. 

Castiel remembers every second of Hell. He remembers seeing his brothers and sisters being dragged down into the depths and torn apart by demons and souls alike. He remembers the hollow ache in his chest when Chamuel was taken, a feeling he now knows as terror and heartbreak. 

There was so much darkness. Castiel has seen every moment since the universe was created, he has witnessed light being created, he has  _been_  darkness itself.

But he does not remember ever feeling so consumed by darkness than he had while flying to Dean.

He was alone and though he didn't know it at the time, he was terrified. He'd seen some of the strongest warriors he knew die and somehow, he had survived. Everything was black.

And then, suddenly, it wasn't. 

Green. There was green  _everywhere_.

If Castiel had needed to breathe, his breath would've caught in his throat.

Dean's pain, his grief, his loathing of everything was palpable in the air. It was a surrounding cloud of black and gray hate and it was one of the most powerful forces Castiel had ever seen.

But it couldn't block out the light. 

With every swing of Dean's arm, every cut of the knife, Castiel saw the light flare. 

Scream, flare. Sob, flare. Cries for help got the biggest flares. 

He had willed himself over to what he was doing, to the pain he was causing, and he had let himself go numb to his own actions.

But the light inside of him wouldn't stop fighting. 

Castiel remembers diving down and moving in front of Dean to block the next hit. He remembers the ball of light overwhelming him and he remembers Dean trying to fight back.

Their bodies in Hell were not their own. The demons were granted the vessel of their choice but the humans were relegated to becoming their own worst nightmares. There were men who wore their father's faces, there were children who were now monsters and there were hunters who looked like themselves. 

He never gave any thought to what he looked like to Dean. He suspected it was some twisted form of his true being, all six of his heads and eight of his wings. He suspected it might be startling to a human.

He did not suspect Dean to fight him so thoroughly, to react so viscerally to the form he appeared as. 

There are no voices in Hell if they do not want you to have one. Dean's was taken away when he wouldn't stop apologizing to his victims, so he couldn't yell as he wanted to.

His soul was  _screaming_. 

Castiel chose to ignore it.

What served as Dean's hands fought him the entire way home. The fear was flashing lights in the middle of his soul and Castiel resisted the urge to quell that fear.

His soul was moving, always moving, always  _fighting_. 

It refused to stop fighting until tendrils of Castiel's Grace reached out and touched it. For a moment it felt like Castiel's power surged and Dean's soul appeared to grow three times in size. 

His body was waiting for them in Dean's grave.

Castiel took his time rebuilding it, deciding that a vessel worthy enough to contain the soul he had just saved was something worth cherishing. 

He remembers every freckle, every molecule, every hair and every scar. He remembers removing all of the scars. This body would have new ones soon enough. 

Dean had been through so much, there was no reason for him to have any reminders of the pain he'd been through before. 

It was the first time Castiel could pinpoint the beginnings of doubt enter his mind.

Hell  _destroyed_  souls. That was the point. Demons meant to torture and defile and destroy human souls until they broke so the demons could pick up the pieces and create a crude imitation of a monster. Goodness and love and a desire for justice were not things that were preserved in Hell. They were targeted and obliterated at the first chance they got.

And yet...

Dean's soul shone brighter than any Grace he'd ever witnessed. It was more pure than most of his brothers and sisters were. It was stronger and filled with more good than his own Grace had ever been. It was divine and righteous and so  _profoundly_  human.

There were clouds of doubt, of pain, of anger, of guilt, of evil. His soul had fought with everything it had but it couldn't hold all of it off. But even where there were cracks, even where the sliver of enjoyment had snuck its way into the glorious light, there were bright and all-consuming flares of  _goodness_. It knew it was being torn apart and it was still fighting with every fiber of Dean's being, forty years in. 

It was not the soul of a man who deserved to be in Hell.

He remembers Dean's soul better than he remembers the creation of the Himalayans or the Northern Lights or the stars in the sky. 

It is, to this day, the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.

Now, Dean's soul is darker and dimmer, the Mark making a valiant effort to overtake all of the good that is left in him. 

But Castiel sees it even still. He sees the flares of light fighting back, he sees the swell of green, he sees it fighting. He sees the cracks in it, he sees the pain and the shame and the helplessness, and he knows that Dean will overcome this.

His borrowed Grace is fading but he can see Dean's soul clearer than anything.

Today he is kneeling in the middle of slaughtered men, blood on his face and a blade in his hand. It is not the right blade, but it's there. It will serve the Mark's purpose.

Again, he feels doubt. 

Dean Winchester has suffered so much, has done so much for so many, and has loved more than most humans ever will. He is everything good that Castiel knows humanity can be and he deserves everything  _ **but**_  this pain.

Claire thinks differently, Sam thinks about himself, and Castiel leaves because Claire is terrified. He can feel Dean's soul mourning, shaking, terrified. 

\--------------------------

He finds Dean in his single motel room after Claire has gone to sleep.

Sam decided he needed some time to think. Dean blames himself.

He's grieving and he's scared and he's alone and his soul flickers with nothing to hold on to. 

Castiel has never regretted losing his Grace more than he has in this moment.

This isn't Hell. He's not a powerful angel anymore. He can't fix this with a snap of his fingers. He can't save Dean from the pain he's feeling. He can't stop Dean from becoming his own worst nightmare again. 

"You promised, Cas," Dean's gruff voice interrupts his thoughts. "Remember that, okay?" 

His voice is shaking in time with the light in his soul. It breaks Castiel's heart.

"I remember," he hears his voice say. He sits down next to Dean, close enough that whatever inkling of his own Grace that still exists might comfort his soul. 

They're silent. Dean's soul calms briefly though the darkness is still there.

"I tried," Dean whispers into the silence. "I tried so hard, Cas. I - I felt it. This whole time and jesus christ, I  _tried_. And I - I didn't -" 

Wordlessly, Castiel sets a hand on Dean's knee and squeezes gently. 

His soul flares and there's a surge of grief that overwhelms the room as Dean whispers, "I didn't  _mean_  to." 

"I know, Dean," Castiel promises him as Dean's hand rests on top of his.

"I know."


End file.
